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The DIY atomic force microscope - Scifabric

Heres a question: what image would you choose to represent science? If you search science in Google Images,
youll see a fair few images of microscopes. The microscope is a tool that people widely associate
with science and research. But how did this happen? Why did the microscope become so popular?

Well, it became popular thanks to Robert Hookes book Micrographia (1665).
This book marked a milestone in scientific
history. It showed the science community how to use microscopes to analyze and study the micro world,
with hand made drawings of cells, fleas and insects.

Now, 351 years later, we might be experiencing another profound turning point in science. And Ive though of a title for the associated book: Nanographia!
The popularization of low cost, do-it-yourself atomic force microscopes
will allow us to explore the nano world. But, how did we get here? How old
is the microscope? Lets start from the beginning.

Indeed! Its a long story, but worth it. Bear with me.

The early years of the microscope

Evidence suggests that the first compound microscope was built in the Netherlands in 1620.
Almost 400 years ago!

But at this point, the microscope didnt have a name. Huh!
We had to wait another 5 years before it was named.
In 1625 Giovanni Faber
a fellow of the Lincean Academy -
coined the name microscope, after Galileo Galilei
presented it one year before.
The name comes from the Greek words (micron) meaning small, and (skopein) meaning to look at.

So we know when it was named, but when did it become a popular instrument? Well, guess what,
another 40 years elapsed before the microscope becomes a popular
tool used in science.

As noted, in 1665 Robert Hooke
published Micrographia (PDF)
a book that inspired the use of microscopes for scientific exploration. The details and quality of his hand
made drawings of insects and plant cells (engraved in copper plates) popularized
his work. Check out the following images!

Hooke's microscope, from an engraving in Micrographia. Photo by Wikipedia.

The engravings were very detailed, but the most awesome feature was that you could
unfold them, making them larger than the book itself, reinforcing the tremendous
power of the microscope. For example, see this flea:

We know when the microscope was invented, when it was named and when it became popular. Now,
its time to learn about its impact in the scientific world (and TV shows!).

In the years after Hookes publication, the microscope was widely used in Italy, the Netherlands and
England. The greatest contribution in this period came from Antonie van Leeuwenhoek who
has been credited with the discoverery of red blood cells and, consequently, helping to popularize
microscopy as a technique. On 1676,
Van Leeuwenhoek reported the discovery of micro-organisms.

Side note:
In truth, Van Leeuwenhoek was not the first person to describe
red particles in blood. However, his observations were more detailed and numerous
than his predecessors (Malpighi
and Swammerdam).

While microscopes became widely used, they faced a problem: how to light the samples.

Lighting is key in microscopy in order to see the sample properly, so it was not
until electric lamps were available as light sources that new advances and
discoveries were made.

After improving the lighting, scientists started to question the limits of this technology.
Whats the smallest thing that you can see with it? To answer this question August Khler developed
the Khler illumination principle, which is central to achieving the theoretical
limits of light microscopy. This was 1893.

Knowing microscopys limits, the pursuit of further knowledge pushed
scientists to use electrons instead of light, and electromagnets in the
place of glass lenses, creating the first electron microscope: the
transmission electron microscope. This was 1931.

A TEM image of the polio virus. The polio virus is 30 nm in size. Photo by Wikipedia.

Other researchers tried different techniques. For example, in the 1980s some scientists started the development of the first scanning probe microscopes.

Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)

The AFM is a big step forward because it improves the quality of the images and
gives us access to the nano world. An optical microscope is limited by the wavelength of light it can detect.
This is called theAbbe limit, which is
around 250 nm (0.25 m).

While this resolution allows us to see most biological cells (1 m to 100 m), it
fails if you try to study viruses (100 nm), proteins (10 nm) or less complex
molecules (1 nm). On the other hand, the AFM has a demonstrated resolution in the
order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the optical
diffraction (Abbe) limit.

While these microscopes are amazing, theyre really expensive too. One will set you back around 300,000 USD.
This basically becomes a huge problem to educators, well, to anyone, as not many
Institutions often do not have the cash to buy this research tool.

With this problem in mind, in 2015 the LEGO Foundation
sponsored a summer school program to develop an affordable do-it-yourself (DIY)
atomic force microscope suitable for use in schools by children. The result has
been an open source AFM that children can build using
LEGO pieces, Arduino, 3D printable parts and local components.

At the same time, Edwin Hwu and his team (who are also developing an open AFM) licensed
a low cost closed-source version, the Strmlingo DIY AFM, which costs 98% less than the
ones available on the market.

These big savings make AFM affordable, enabling institutions to buy cheap AFM microscopes that their
students can build themselves. Moreover, this building process only takes a few hours and the
kids can start operating it in a matter of minutes.

Due to this success, students will be able to see nano structures that would otherwise be impossible to view with
a regular microscope, such as particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less
(known as PM 2.5). Why are these particles particularly important? Well, because theyre among the most harmful
for human health as they are small enough to penetrate deeply in the lungs and may even cross
into the blood. Scary, right?

Edwin and his students have shown how affordable nanoscopes
can be used to analyze and take samples of these particles and, indeed,
schools all over the world have participated in his projects.

Nanographia, the drawings of PM 2.5

As Robert Hookes book Micrographia popularized microscopes, the low cost DIY nanoscope will enable
kids and anyone with interest in this field to write the next book that will popularize this new
type of microscope. If Micrographia was a milestone due to new discoveries in the micro world,
affordable do-it-yourself nanoscopes will help to write the book that will make history again: Nanographia.

The book will describe how you can build the nanoscope and how you can use it for studying
PM 2.5 particles. Instead of drawings, the book will feature photos showing the
discoveries. As you can see, Nanographia will help to spread the word about this technology, as Hooke did
almost 400 years ago.

As with any other scientific publication, there will be a subject to be studied: the PM2.5 particles.
A chapter might explain what PM2.5 particles are, as well as how you can make
microscope sample slides by cutting up DVD ROMs and placing them
outside for at least 10 minutes.

Why are we going to use DVDs? Because the distance between the tracks in a DVD are known (740 nanometers) and
we can see them with the AFM.

The next chapter will be about the analysis. Once you have the samples, it will describe
how you can analyze them by hand: calibrating the samples and measuring
the area covered by the candidate PM2.5 particles.

Incredible right? As we discovered this story, we wanted to contribute a few
chapters for the book. One about crowdsourcing as we think it would be amazing for the crowd to analyze samples
(following the citizen science approach of this project), and a second one running workshops about the project where
you can learn, build the nanoscope, and analyze the samples with the crowd.

SciFabrics chapters for Nanographia

Our desire to contribute to this book became a reality when
Edwin and his team contacted us to use our citizen science Crowdcrafting
platform for analyzing the samples with the crowd.

The next chapter will be about citizen science workshops, as we offer them to
students and teachers as a new way to discover
science and learn by doing. The chapter will include a new course on how you can build
the nanoscope, use its technology and learn the citizen science approach.

In November 2015 we wrote the first draft. We proposed that Medialab-Prado
(Madrid, Spain) organize an event like this, and they accepted.

The workshop became popular and Spanish national TV show La aventura del saber (the
adventure of knowing) interviewed us, showing how we built the microscope and analyzed
some of the samples (it starts at minute 14:00, only in Spanish):

The final chapter

Weve seen the evolution of microscopes and how human pursuit of knowledge has got
us here today. Nowadays we can build nanoscopes at home and explore the nano world in a few
hours. The possibilities are endless, but are nanoscopes the new edition of Micrographia?
Are nanoscopes making history?

Well, I would say its early to know, but the truth is that it has lots of potential.

I can barely imagine how kids will be building and using this tool trying to understand what lies
in the nano world, and the best part is that were exploring it together!

By the way: High Five! You are awesome! You just read until here, so cool!

Now, get away from your laptop, tablet or phone
and enjoy a beer, coffee, whatever you like. Its been a long read and you deserve it!